America’s Iran Policy Backed Into a Corner By MEK in Albania

Since well before President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the U.S. and Iran have been in a de facto state of non-military warfare with sanctions, economic sabotage, cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns and social media attacks the weapons of choice. Both countries have exploited conflict in the region, especially after the rise of ISIS, to extend their military presence and reach.

While some in the U.S. have pressed for war with Iran at all costs, the U.S.’s lack of response to Iran’s attack on its bases in Iraq following the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani exposed a real problem. It is an open secret among military and security analysts that war with Iran is not an option; neither the U.S. nor Israel can pursue war with Iran without facing mutual destruction.

It is an open secret among military and security analysts that war with Iran is not an option

Others on the anti-Iran front have pushed for regime change. But this long-term push to manufacture or engineer the collapse of the ruling system and replace it with a conformist government has also failed to bring about any result.

Since 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has straddled these agendas but has failed to make progress on either. Rather than act as the diplomatic face of the American government, Pompeo leaned on his CIA skillset in the belief that covert and insidious activities by proxy activists can be used to influence, manipulate, manufacture and divert the course of action around Iran. Now, as a result of these policy failures and errors of judgement, the U.S. is losing ground and influence in the Middle East and beyondso that America’s front line with Iran has retreated trench by trench from military containment to a petty propaganda war fought in Albania.

Why Albania?

Albania, of course, is now home to the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq (MEK). For 40 years, since its exile from Iran — first to Iraq then to Albania — the MEK has promised to be the agent of regime change, either through war or insurgency. And, in spite of having no evidence of its efficacy, for 40 years anti-Iran elements in the west, particularly neoconservatives, have supported the group and its agenda to the almost total exclusion of other genuine opposition groups and movements.

This exaggerated role of the MEK in U.S. Iran policy again came to attention when Pompeo rescinded a directive to U.S. embassies barring “direct U.S. government engagement” with Iranian militant and opposition groups. It soon emerged that an MEK lobbyist Robert G. Joseph had met with Brian Hook, the U.S.’s special representative for Iran and senior adviser to Pompeo, before the assassination of Soleimani and again just afterwards. Statements by Pompeo over the past few months have echoed MEK propaganda showing his susceptibility to this influence.

…the Trump administration still clings to the delusion that the MEK has leverage or influence or power in relation to events in Iran.

This continued engagement with the MEK indicates that the Trump administration still clings to the delusion that the MEK has leverage or influence or power in relation to events in Iran. It does not. The enduring support of MEK by anti-Iran pundits defies logic. Nothing has been gained throughout the past four decades. Much has been lost that can be linked to this support. The MEK promises regime change but cannot even come close to delivering.

MEK Capabilities

One reason for this failure — that those who exploit the group are unwilling to acknowledge — is the total absence of support for the MEK among Iranians inside and outside the country. So unpopular are the MEK in Iran that protestors in the November fuel protests, who were warned falsely by Iran’s hardline security services that the MEK were behind the violence, went home and demanded the government create safe and suitable conditions for public protest. Similarly, the students who in January this year protested their government’s response to shooting down Ukrainian Flight 752, issued a strong statement denouncing interference from outside Iran. This was clearly meant to distance their protest from the hated MEK.

The main reason the MEK has failed to perform, however, is its own structural defect. It is a cult not an opposition group. The MEK is subject only to its own internal dynamics and obeys only its own laws. It has no respect for or need to abide by or adopt external norms and values, whether legal or moral. The MEK’s aim is to stay relevant, so it pays advocates and lobbyists to have its name broadcast and published as widely as possible. But its PR image does not reflect either the real capabilities or the effectiveness of the group.

The MEK’s infamous troll farm exposed by The Intercept comes close to explaining why some in the Trump administration and beyond still cling to the hope that the MEK’s propaganda activities might finally triumph by imposing their false narrative on events. But as much as they want to utilize the MEK, they should know by now that this group cannot deliver what it promises. Nor will the MEK ever come under the purview of U.S. control.

From its first arrival in Albania in 2013, the MEK continued its antagonistic anti-Iran political activities. In 2017, the Trump administration overturned plans to de-radicalize the MEK members. Instead, the MEK built an extra-territorial garrison to house the enslaved members so they wouldn’t escape. Emboldened, the MEK was able to coerce the Albanian government into pushing back against Iran through its embassy in Tirana. Following the Soleimani assassination two more Iranian diplomats were expelled from Albania and rapid response police were deployed to protect the MEK camp as though it were a diplomatic facility and not a refugee camp. Prime Minister Edi Rama was forced to admit that although Albania had accepted to host the MEK as a humanitarian gesture, the group now poses a national security issue for his country.

European PerspectiveEurope has a different view of the MEK. Since arriving in Albania, the group came under increasing scrutiny by European security and intelligence services, including the formidable services of Albania itself. Experts on the MEK had warned that the group’s maverick behavior would result in the U.S.’s front line with Iran being redrawn in Albania.European tolerance for the MEK has been stretched by events from self-immolations in 2003 to the alleged bomb plot at Villepinte in 2018, violence in the European Parliament in 2018 and interference in Spain’s elections. Last year, the MEK’s activities began to be curtailed as permission was denied for demonstrations and the annual rally at Villepinte. The MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and her acolytes have now moved their headquarters to Albania where they occupy an entire floor of the International Hotel in Skanderbeg Square in Tirana. Meanwhile, Albania’s accession to the E.U. is doomed as long as the MEK remains active in that country and the E.U. now regards the U.S. with suspicion on this issue, not amity.

In Albania the people are angry. They see their government bending to U.S. and MEK demands to the detriment of their country. Support for the MEK is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with U.S. Iran policy. Instead of striving for effective diplomacy, Pompeo oversees an actively antagonistic Iran policy that shows contempt for and alienates the very people who are needed to effect change: the ordinary citizens of friendly countries and foes alike.

By Massoud and Anne Khodabandeh

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Anne Khodabandeh Works as Middle East Strategy Consultant. Author of Saddam's Private Army (2003) and co-author with Massoud Khodabandeh of The Life of Camp Ashraf (2011). Married to Massoud Khodabandeh. Writer and editor for Iran Interlink.

It became obvious to me that after Soliemain’s assassination both the Trump administration (and Israel) do not want democratic reforms and ultimately a free society in Iran. Any one who understands the culture of Iranian people would have told Mr Trump and all those who okayed the killing of Soliemani that it would only strengthen the regime and the hardliners. And this became apparent when people in their millions thronged to his funerals around the country. The timing of this assassination is more revealing than anything else; not long before the Iranian Parliamentary election! It was only meant to destroy any chance of reformists coming to power. Despite the U.S. and Israel rhetoric of regime change in Iran they both want the Islamic Republic of Iran to remain in power. It is good for business as far as Trump is concerned by selling billions of dollars worth of arms to whoever is scared of the regime in Iran. And Israel can use Iran as an excuse for any extreme measures that it wants to take in the region without looking bad in the eyes of the International community.

The support for MEK is because they know that MEK does not stand a chance of ever coming to power in Iran, yet another masquerade by the Trump administration.

If there is any integrity left in the Iranian opposition inside or outside Iran they should consider the U.S. and Israel as two powers covertly destroying any possible reforms in Iran which would lead to a more free society.

Rather obvious if you simply examine the long-history and politics of the scenarios without the surface mythos. Israel is nothing but a Lord Walter Rothschild and Zionist Federation established imperial outpost and European colony with identity and founding myths destined for decades with intent to expand violently into “Greater Israel”. It says it right on the Likud Charter, Parsa.

The US policy towards Islamic Republic of Hell, deep down, has always been one of “behavior modification,” attempting to pull mullahs into the orbit of US in the region and having Tehran coordinate its aims with the overall regional stratagem of the US. Even Trump himself, the latest clown trying to make mullahs behave, has repeatedly said that “the current leadership of Iran (meaning the mullahs) could do great things if it abandons….).

War and “regime change” has never been an option or a real policy of the US, other than saber rattling to gain some points in negotiations. Iranian people’s attitude towards Islamic Republic of Hell however is a very different narrative indeed.

During the December 2017 uprising in Iran, the most significant people’s chants was:

“Reformers, Conservatives the Game is Over” “اصلاح‌طلب، اصولگرا، دیگه تمومه ماجرا” Which was a paradigm shift of sorts in Iranian politics, indicating that neither factions of the regime has any appeal among the population.

Last week massive refusal to participate in the sham elections, demonstrated that only a low level of less than 14% participated in the proceedings. And we could rest assure that half of the number was out right theft of votes, purchasing of votes, stuffing the ballot boxes with fake votes,..

The trajectory of events from December of 2017 to today demonstrates that Islamic Republic of Hell currently has ZERO legitimacy among Iranian people.

Criminal mullahs homicidal handling of the Corona virus outbreak in Iran will only aggravate this lack of legitimacy and antagonize the relationship between people and the state.

In this context US policy towards Iran is pretty much irrelevant, basically as it was during the Revolution of 1979.

Sectarian dinosaurs such as MEK (whom Iranian people now call “Mozahemin”, meaning: Nuisances) are even more irrelevant and moot.

Faced with the reality that the world will not rally around a US-led war against Iran, the Trump administration seeks to resurrect the specter of IS to manufacture international support for its continued military presence in the Middle East.

Faced with the reality that the world will not rally around a US-led war against Iran, the Trump administration seeks to resurrect the specter of IS to manufacture international support for its continued military presence in the Middle East.